24 ME 110 IBS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM. 



ON A GIANT TURTLE FROM 

 THE QUEENSLAND LOWER CRETACEOUS. 



By Heber A. Longman. 

 (Plates XII and XIII and Two Text-figures.) 



It has been a matter of surprise to those interested in palaeontology that 

 the Queensland Cretaceous formations have as yet yielded comparatively few 

 remains of the giant reptilian forms which characterised Mesozoic faunas. The 

 paucity of described species is probably due to lack of systematic research, and, 

 as time goes on and our inland areas are better known, further fossil remains, 

 perchance providing novelties rivalling the grotesque monsters of other lands, 

 may be exhumed. A collection of fossils found on Sylvania Station, twenty miles 

 west of Hughenden, gives encouragement to this hope, for these, although 

 fragmentary, point indubitably to the presence of a giant Chelonian whose 

 proportions are not dwarfed by the monster turtles of the London Clay or the 

 American Archelon and Protostega. 



The Queensland Museum is indebted to Mr. F. L. Berney, whose efforts in 

 the cause of Australian science have already made his name familiar with local 

 workers, for the deposition of these valuable remains in our national collections. 



Just as in America the first described fragments of the giant Archelon and 

 other Protostegidce were supplemented by fairly complete skeletons, so we hope 

 that our Queensland formations will later afford examples which will permit of 

 comprehensive reconstruction and probably shed light on the phylogeny of the 

 group. Although the outlines of the Australian Cretaceous sea are not as yet 

 comprehensively defined, there is considerable evidence for an eastern land 

 barrier connecting Australia with Asiatic regions and also stretching further 

 south. If this barrier were continuous with northern continental regions, 

 associations with our Cretaceous fauna should be more frequent on the western 

 side (where breaks in the land barrier are suggested) than on the Pacific border. 

 W. S. Dun x has shown that the marine fauna of Western Australia exhibits 

 " marked affinities (and identity) with European and Asiatic species," but he 

 notes a " lack of community" between the Mesozoic fauna of the west and that 

 of the vast eastern beds (from whence our fossils come). He speaks of these last 

 as a " Cretaceous Mediterranean, ' ' and refers to the ' ' numerous species peculiar 

 to the region and many endemic genera among the Mollusca. ' ' But this endemic 

 character of our Cretaceous molluscan fauna can scarcely be projected into the 

 accompanying larger vertebrates such as the immense Ichthyosaurians and 

 Plesiosaurians. Similarly we dare not suggest merety a local range for this new 

 giant Chelonian, especially when we remember how cosmopolitan is the habitat 

 of several far smaller turtles at the present day. Thus it is by no means 



a W. S. Dun, Handbook of Australia, B.A.A.S., 1914, p. 296. 



